Saturday, December 1

FREE TO AIR

Young James Herriot, ABC1, 8.20pm

IN THIS first episode of Young James Herriot, the prequel to the much-loved series All Creatures Great and Small, we meet a young Herriot (Iain de Caestecker) on his first day at the dark and dingy Glasgow Veterinary College. Almost immediately James finds himself involved in high jinks and attending to a sick horse. We encounter all manner of other warm-blooded mammals as Herriot charts his way in this quirky, clever and charming show. It is set in 1930s Glasgow, which looks like a dastardly place to live, but James's new friends warm to him quickly and see to it that bitter-sweetness can be countenanced by good humour and good drink. The central female character, Whirly Tyson (Amy Manson), is a strong and forthright young woman forced to deal with issues some viewers may remember only too well - or still, unfortunately, have to put up with.

David Attenborough: The Life of Mammals, Channel Ten, 6.30pm

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WHEN you hear the word rodent, the last thing you probably think of is a quirky, cute and cuddly little animal. But in tonight's episode of Life of Mammals, most of these sharp-toothed little critters are just that, such as the burrowing and ingenious kangaroo rat or the dextrous and utterly clever North American squirrel. The episode is titled ''Chisellers'', and it refers to the ability of these mammals to crack and chisel open, with their prominent incisors, the nuts and other difficult foodstuffs that other animals leave behind. This is a heartening documentary on a commonly maligned group of animals. Attenborough, as always, is personable and highly knowledgeable and the footage is equally good.

Hunted, SBS One, 8.30pm

THE confusing narrative and overt obfuscation continue in the second episode of this HBO-BBC spy thriller. Melissa George pouts her way through with steely determination while the other characters are rendered one-dimensional, if they're lucky. Every conceivable stylistic and camera trick is used, every angle and artistic shot possible is used, ensuring that you will neither connect nor empathise with any of the characters. As a result of the detached grittiness of style, the show simply loses any suspense or dramatic integrity, leaving you perplexed, disengaged and, frankly, annoyed.

Real Humans, SBS One, 9.30pm

SPEAKING of all things chilly, immediately following Hunted is the new Scandinavian sci-fi series Real Humans. It is so incredibly cool it's almost subzero. As opposed to Hunted, however, this is substance and style with its minimalist aesthetic just right. In this surreal and sterile parallel present we find ''hubots'' - robots that are in effect human with a few key characteristics that belie their true nature, such as the occasional short-circuiting or need to power up. But apart from their doll-like appearances, they are very real indeed. Most of the robots appear to be benevolent to their masters, but for how long?

LUKE STREVENS

PAY TV

Masters of Money: Friedrich Hayek, BBC World News, 2.10pm

ECONOMICS might be the dismal science, but this terrific little series about three of its biggest names - Keynes, Marx and Hayek - is thoroughly absorbing. Today, BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders looks at Friedrich Hayek, the free-marketeer who argued that government intervention distorted markets and led to tyranny. Opposed to president Franklin Roosevelt's efforts to spend the US out of the Depression, Hayek was marginalised as economies centralised during World War II and its aftermath. But Hayek's 1974 Nobel prize win, and Margaret Thatcher's embrace of his ideas, brought him back to prominence and drew political battle lines that exist today. Flanders gets insights and opinions from across the spectrum. It repeats tomorrow at 9.10am and 9.10pm.

Bobby Flay's Barbecue Addiction, LifeStyle Food, 4pm

AMERICAN chef Bobby Flay, who played himself as Mrs Ari's new boyfriend in Entourage (my viewing companion is like Rain Man with this stuff), is here to fire us up for the summer barbie. Today he's going Greek, which involves gyros made from a spit-roasted leg of lamb, seafood skewers, radish tzatziki and a salad made of grilled fingerling potatoes with green beans and feta. Flay is bland but his food looks scrummy and he shows how to make the marinades and everything from scratch.

Conspiracy 365, FMC, 7pm

The Australian teen conspiracy thriller series reaches its climax as Cal Ormond (Harrison Gilbertson) gets closer to the truth about the Ormond Singularity.

Project Accessory, Arena, 4.15pm

The designers rummage through a curiosity shop looking for things with which to make red carpet-worthy accessories.

The Lost Valentine, Universal, 8.30pm

Romantic telemovie starring Betty White and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

BRAD NEWSOME

MOVIES

Spider-Man 3 (2007), GO!, 9.30pm

SPIDER-MAN 3 had more special effects and garish villains than either of its forebears, but it feels bereft of momentum, making do with a succession of episodic diversions while it lines up plot points to eventually tangle together like the webs Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) shoots from his wrists when masked as Spider-Man. Maguire, for one, appears out of sorts throughout. His boyishness remains, but where in previous films he plays off that quality, he is content to trade on it here, providing a performance that is dangerously inert at times. Yet the key creative personnel were in control and, if anything, director Sam Raimi had more influence - he has a co-writing credit alongside his elder brother, Ivan - resulting in several sequences of farcical humour reminiscent of his collaboration with the Coen brothers on 1994's The Hudsucker Proxy. The most notable, a French maitre d' with a touch of Monty Python to him, is present as Peter disastrously proposes to Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst).

The Rocker (2008), Channel One, 8.30pm

RAINN Wilson, the upright eccentric from the US edition of The Office, plays an ageing musician who invades his nephew's band, with support from the ever-underused Christina Applegate.